Australian Wayne Lynch Joins Patagonia

Wayne Lynch Becomes a Part of Patagonia’s Prestigious Lineup of Surf Ambassadors

Ventura, CA – December 9, 2008. Patagonia, Inc., the surf apparel company, announces today that Australian surf legend Wayne Lynch has joined the company’s impressive group of surf ambassadors. Wayne will work with Patagonia to help develop and hone the company’s Surf product line with an emphasis on functionality, durability, and minimal environmental impact. Wayne joins the Malloy Brothers, Gerry Lopez, fellow-Australian Belinda Baggs, Mary Osborne, and other well-respected surfers in his move to Patagonia.

“Wayne is a living legend in our sport,” says Jason McCaffrey, who oversees Patagonia’s Surf operations. “He’s aligned perfectly with our company’s philosophy and has a genuine interest in being a part of the change we’re trying to create in the surf industry. His input and feedback will be applied to everything – from clothing to wetsuits to boards. His experiences and ideas will be utilized to their fullest. Next year, we will have some of his board designs using our epoxy technologies, which will be unreal!”

Wayne joins Patagonia in advance of Patagonia’s first Australian retail store opening on December 12th 2008 in Torquay. Wayne will be instrumental in helping the company establish itself as a player in the Australian surf market and will serve as an ambassador of the brand in his home country.

“Every thought and action has a particular quality – and we can choose to refine that quality in what we think, do and say,” notes Wayne, “To me, Patagonia exemplifies this idea through productions and its sense of responsibility to all life on our earth.”

Described by some as the inventor of vertical surfing and others as the ultimate soul surfer, Wayne Lynch’s contributions to the evolution of wave riding are hard to deny. He was a teenager during the critical transition from longboards to shortboards in the late sixties and early seventies. The lines he drew on early shortboards were completely new at the time and his influence can still be seen in today’s surfers. Like many of the world’s best surfers today, Wayne wasn’t interested in pursuing fame and money for its own sake. He wanted, instead, to continue developing and exploring new ideas and directions in surfing and shaping – in favor of a celebrity life. Wayne notes, “For Me, the pursuit of excellence had little to do with winning. I wanted to explore new coasts and discover new breaks. I also wanted to strip away the irrelevant and things that were detrimental to the creative process and art of surfing.”

Chris Malloy, fellow Patagonia surf ambassador, notes, “Wayne has stayed true to what the surfing experience is all about – no matter what the surf industry has tried to do to it.” Today, Wayne Lynch still lives in Victoria, Australia with his wife and two kids. He continues to design and build surfboards, recently releasing a line of modern single fins, the templates being based on what he was riding in the seventies.
ABOUT PATAGONIA

Patagonia, known primarily for technical alpine apparel, has been closely connected to the ocean market for over thirty years. Founder and noted rock climber Yvon Chouinard chose to base Patagonia in Ventura, California, because of its proximity to two famous point breaks within six miles of company headquarters. The company’s product line has included surf trunks designed for ocean sports for many years. In 1997, the company began designing, manufacturing, and distributing surfboards shaped by Fletcher Chouinard, son of Yvon Chouinard. Fletcher Chouinard’s vision for the company’s surfboard operations drove Patagonia’s current effort to address the ocean athlete in a new way.